An urbane, sophisticated, and civilized man, the postmaster is completely out of his depth in the remote backwater of Ulapur. This is a place where people have no leisure and therefore no time to pursue any of the hobbies in which the postmaster would normally indulge back in Calcutta. And besides, the postmaster is insistent that in this part of the world, there are hardly any desirable companions for decent folk like himself.

The postmaster has a lot of free time to spare in his new role. This gives him the chance to try his hand at writing poetry. Unfortunately, although Ulapur is undoubtedly a very beautiful place in many respects, with its fluttering bamboo leaves and its majestic clouds, it cannot provide the postmaster with much in the way of poetic inspiration. He finds the place so singularly unpleasant that he even wishes that some genie would come and sweep away all the trees and replace them with tarmacked roads.

As it's impossible to write poetry in such an unpromising environment, the postmaster spends most of his ample free time teaching his unofficial servant, the orphan girl Ratan, how to read. Ratan makes considerable progress in her studies in a relatively short space of time, but it is not enough to convince the postmaster that he's better off staying in Ulapur instead of returning home to Calcutta.